The Adventures of Lyle: Fast Food Employee! Vol2
by Emily N. Daniel
Summary: Lyle is still working fast food and hating it. One day, he stumbles upon something that helps him move up in the workplace, but at a terrible cost. With fellow workers paying the price, his friend Amanda must stop the force behind Lyle's odd new behavior.


The Adventures of Lyle: Fast Food Employee!!!

By Emily N. Daniel

Lyle sighed as he flipped over the burger patty, listening to it sizzle. The air was thick with grease. The heat was becoming unbearable and at this rate he feared he would be overcome by either suffocation or dehydration. He looked above the grill and saw his friend and co-worker Amanda at the cash register. She smiled and waved. He returned the wave and then noticed the smoke. Cursing as he threw away the burnt patty, he found himself wishing he too could work up front at the register just to escape from the grease pit that threatened to do him in.

Finally, Lyle was sent on break. He sat at the employee table, his employee meal in front of him. Watching the grease slowly drip from the burger onto the wrapper, he soon lost his appetite and pushed it away. "Man, I need to ask for a position change!" Lyle exclaimed then suddenly felt stupid for talking to himself. He scowled. If only he wasn't so timid...and negative...and more of a people person.

As the end of his break neared, Lyle got up to throw away his uneaten food. However, as he turned from the trash can, he noticed a peculiar sight. Something was glowing from beneath the lockers. He bent down to look and gasped at what he saw.

"I demand you put me on counter!" Lyle exclaimed angrily at the store manager, "I hate it back in grill! All that grease makes me sick!"

"Lyle, must I explain again that we don't need any more cashiers at the moment?" the manager by now was getting horribly irritated. "Now you get back to work or else you're going to get written up!"

"Well then, perhaps this argument will persuade you to give me the position...."

Amanda was sweeping the floor, one of her favorite activities to do, when she looked up and saw Lyle standing before her. She let out a yelp of surprise before quickly composing herself. "What are you, like, doing up here, Lyle? You already, like, went on break and stuff."

"I am the new cashier. We'll be working alongside each other. They sent your former co-cashier back to grill." A rather sadistic smirk crossed Lyle's lips before he too composed himself.

"Wow, that's interesting. I didn't think they were going to...what is that, like, glowing underneath your shirt?" Amanda stared at him with wide, curious eyes.

"It's nothing!" Lyle snapped just a little too quickly, "Get back to work!"

"You're not my, like, manager!" Amanda's stare turned into a glare. "You can't boss me around!"

"Not yet anyway." Lyle gave a chuckle and went to learning the register, leaving Amanda wondering just what was going on.

"YOU THERE! GET BACK TO WORK!" Lyle yelled. A fifteen-year-old employee yelped and dropped the fry basket hard into the fryer, causing hot grease to splash upon her. "NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE! GET CLEANED UP AND PUT SOME ALOE ON THOSE BURNS! WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR KLUTZINESS! IT'S LUNCH RUSH!"

"Lyle, aren't you, like, being a bit hard on her?" Amanda said as she rushed to get the food to the customers. "We are all working as hard as we can, you know. Like, give us a break! Just because you're a manager now...."

"You know, Amanda, they made me a manager for good reason," Lyle sneered at her. "They saw how pathetic you lot are and they needed someone to whip you maggots into shape."

"The way you treat us, we feel like maggots!" Amanda snapped.

"Good! Maybe when I see some improvement around here, I can upgrade the treatment from maggots to vermin. NOW MOVE!" Lyle hurried to get more fries down, but Amanda couldn't help but notice whatever object Lyle had been wearing around his neck for the last couple weeks would glow from underneath his shirt during times when he was being a real tyrant. Whatever Lyle was wearing was affecting him, making him horribly mean…even borderline evil. She had to figure out what it was and how to get it away from him.

After the lunch rush, Lyle looked his employees over. "You know, you are lucky you all aren't fired by now. That was the worst rush I've seen yet and I for one am ashamed. If anyone needs me, I'll be taking my break."

Amanda asked someone to watch her post as she snuck around to the manager's area to take a peek at what Lyle was up to. As she peered around the doorway, she saw Lyle simply eating his meal, which was dripping with grease as always. However, the object was now on the outside of his shirt. It looked like an orb of some kind and again it was glowing with its eerie green light. Lyle suddenly looked up and saw her. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" he exclaimed angrily, quickly tucking the object back underneath. Amanda stared at him, trying to find words to say when she gasped. His usually blue eyes were now the same green color as the orb he wore.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE CAN'T GET THOSE BUNS IN UNTIL TOMORROW?!" Lyle screamed over the phone, "I'll let you know that I am the store manager and we need buns TONIGHT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!" Lyle slammed down the receiver and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was pale and his cheeks were sunken in. He hadn't eaten in days and had slept relatively little over the last several weeks. All he could think about was work, work, work.

He had managed to secure the position of store manager when the last one ran out during a dinner rush, yelling something horrible with eyes that looked positively manic. No one could explain it. Lyle had simply been discussing possible changes to the store and its policies. The next thing he knew, she was cowering before him. A moment later, well, she ran out during the dinner rush. That was pretty much stated a moment ago, if you were actually paying attention.

"I was paying attention, you dolt!" Lyle exclaimed at his reflection then quickly covered his mouth in shock. What was happening to him anyway? It was like he was sharing his body with another, someone who was far more aggressive and temperamental than he. It was like he was becoming this other person. Even his eyes looked different, somehow greener. He decided he'd better go check on his employees, who were closing up shop.

"Amanda, could you check the levels on the oil before we cover the vats?" he asked as nicely as he could.

"Lyle, duh! I don't, like, know how to do that kind of stuff!" Amanda snapped as she cleaned the fry station.

"THEN FIGURE IT OUT!" Lyle's eyes were once again glowing sickly green. Amanda had been trying to figure out for weeks how to get the orb, which was controlling Lyle, away from him. With each passing day, she grew more frustrated.

"FINE, LYLE! I'll check the levels!" Amanda slammed down the cleaner bottle, causing a nearby fry scoop to fall into the open vat of bubbling hot grease.

"AH! IT BURNS!" Lyle cried and grabbed his arm, but instead of looking at Amanda with green hatred his blue eyes had returned and he simply looked as if he was in pain. Suddenly, Amanda realized that pain could possibly bring Lyle back around long enough to destroy the orb's hold, but how could she use that tactic without putting Lyle at risk?

Amanda looked around, mopping as she did so. It was drawing closer and closer to closing the store entirely. Lyle had gone ahead and let the other closers go home since Amanda was taking so long to finish her part. However, this was intentional. She had to get him alone for long enough to pry the mind-controlling orb Lyle wore away from him.

"AMANDA! At this rate, we're going to be greeting the openers! What is the hold-up?!" Lyle stomped over, his eyes glaring and stabbing at her with deadly green daggers.

She yelped. "I'm sorry, Lyle! I don't mean to be slow! I want to, like, go home as badly as you do!"

"It doesn't seem that way. This isn't the first time you've closed and I've never heard of you having this problem. In fact, most of the time you are helping the others to catch up...." Lyle went silent and his mouth twisted into a vile sneer. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? You're trying to make me look bad! YOU'RE JEALOUS OF MY POWER!"

"Power? Lyle, you're, like, a store manager at a fast food restaurant." By now, Amanda was shaking in her slip-proof work shoes.

"This is only the beginning," Lyle grinned, "I'll climb up the ladder. I'll run multiple stores. Maybe I'll be CEO of this crazy fast food corporation. People love this place...and soon they will all love ME and I will rule all!" Now it was Lyle who was shaking, but it was from maniacal laughter erupting from deep within, an unnatural laughter.

"Lyle, you've gone mad! You're not even making sense now!" Amanda dropped her mop and grabbed him, now the shaking coming from her trying to bring him to his senses. "I hate to do this to you, but it's for your own good!" She drew back her fist and punched him in the nose so hard he felt it break in at least two places.

Before the pain could register, Lyle roared in anger and shoved her hard, causing her to fall and hit her head against a corner of the ice machine. Amanda now lay still on the floor, blood pooling beneath her head.

"No, Amanda!" Lyle cried as he kneeled down, watching in horror as blood continued to flow down Amanda's head. "I didn't mean to push you into the ice machine! I didn't mean to make you hit your head! Please...be okay...." Tears were now flowing from his eyes, almost as rapidly as the previously-mentioned blood. Lyle grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her head, but the blood just seemed to seep through. He stared down at her and suddenly he felt something he hadn't before. "My nose...it's bleeding...wait a second..." Lyle began to realize that it had been his blood the entire time, that it was just hitting Amanda's head and then oozing its way down to the floor. The original pool of blood was from when Amanda broke his nose in the first place. Her head just happened to land in it. Understand now?

"Oooh, my head...what happened?" Amanda asked as she slowly got up. "Ew, why is there blood in my hair? Oh, Lyle, you're bleeding! I think I broke your nose when I punched you! I'm so sorry!"

"That's okay. Huh? What's this?" Lyle looked down as the chain broke from his neck and the orb fell from beneath his shirt, smashing upon the floor. A ghostly version of the alien they had killed before to stop from becoming brain food appeared before them and screamed before disappearing into smoke. Then there was no more.

"So, all this time you were being controlled by that alien guy...." Amanda was about to say more but was surprised by something completely unexpected. Lyle was kissing her. "Ew, Lyle! You're getting more blood on me!"

The End


End file.
